Tracing metal footprints through global renewable power value chains

Abstract The globally booming renewable power industry has stimulated an unprecedented appetite for metals as key infrastructure components. Many economies with different endowments and technology levels participate in global renewable power value chains (RPVCs) at different production stages, making it difficult to tell who supplies metals for whose low-carbon power generation. Here, we employ a value chain decomposition model to trace the metal footprints (MFs) and value-added of major global economies’ renewable power sectors. We find the MFs of global renewable power sector increased by 47% during 2005–2015. Developed economies occupy the high-end segments of the RPVCs, while transfer metal-intensive but low value-added production activities to less developed economies. The fast growing demands for renewable power in developed economies are the major contributors to the embodied metal transfer increment within RPVCs, which is partly offset by the declining metal intensities in less developed economies. Therefore, it is urgent to establish a metal-efficient and greener supply chain for upstream suppliers and downstream renewable power installers for a just transition in power sector across the globe.